


Five Things That Never Happened to Bunny Manders

by JackOfNone



Category: AJ Raffles - Hornung
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe, Crossdressing, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/pseuds/JackOfNone





	Five Things That Never Happened to Bunny Manders

 There is blood on his face, and it is not his. On some level he knows he's thinking Thank God, he might have ruined everything but right now he is only conscious of revulsion and horror. He coughs, tastes blood on his lips that cannot be his own, and chokes back bile.

"Are you quite all right?" Raffles says, as airily as always, the revolver still smoking in his hand.

"You shot him," Bunny manages. He is trying very hard not to look at body -- the mess that used to be a human being, clutching a sheaf of bloody documents that could have spelled ruin for the both of them. There's an ugly, gaping hole above his right eye spilling fresh blood onto the tiles; a hole that makes it look almost (but not quite) unlike the face it used to be.

"It was going to happen," Raffles says, as though this were the most natural thing in the world, "And anyway, he had evidence on you. He might have destroyed us both."

"But you shot him...on my account," Bunny says. He feels numb. The sound of shattering bone will not leave his head.

"My dear rabbit...you assume I wouldn't have killed him if it weren't for you." Raffles' smile is perfect, and terrifying.

* * *

The papers say that the robberies are all the work of one man. The tabloids always speculate, of course, happily ascribing common crimes to some shadowy arch-villain whose identity could be deduced but not proven...but Mr Manders thinks that they may be right this time.

Of course, Mr Manders does not tell anyone about these hunches. He is a respectable newspaperman, and he writes only facts in his exposes -- not wild surmise like those cheap gossip rags, chalking up every unsolved murder to this week's "Napoleon of Crime". Mr Manders has been sent to cover a series of high-profile thefts, and he will print no more and no less than what was known for certain. The police will find the facts, the public will interpret them; Mr Manders, for all his literary talent, strives to be merely a conduit between the two.

The reason that even the respectable papers suspect a master thief is simple -- so simple, in fact, that it seems ridiculous that anyone would actually do it. The man leaves a calling card, just like the dashing villain in any number of penny-dreadfuls. Only this man doesn't leave an alias, or a warning of his next strike, or anything that might lead a detective to his doorstep. His calling card is a simple drawing, always the same. A fox, stamped in bright red ink, pursued by a rabbit.

Mr Manders sees the drawing, delicate and minimal, over and over again...at the crime scenes themselves, later in the police stations, and reprinted a hundred thousand times for the edification of the reading public. The fox, and the rabbit who is always the exact same distance away, chasing but never catching.

They call him the Midnight Fox in the tabloids. Mr Manders thinks he might know a name, and who the calling card is meant for. But he is a respectable newspaperman, and doesn't speculate.

* * *

"I think I am likely to faint," Bunny says, fanning himself. "Or trip over these shoes."

"Fainting," Raffles replies, keeping a tight grip on Bunny's arm, "will merely add to the effect. If you feel the urge, by all means -- do so."

"I'm beginning to think better of this," Bunny insists, in a low whisper. He's supposed to let Raffles do the talking, and pretend to be shy and reserved. This is fine, because Raffles has always been better at talking -- Bunny just wishes his disguise didn't depend on it. He clings closer to Raffles, the better to whisper in his ear, and people are starting to look at them. At any moment he expects someone to see through his carefully-arranged costume, but no one seems to. They are staring for different reasons.

"Nonsense. You were right! It couldn't be more perfect. We need to lay low, you see...and the last thing they'll expect is for us to be parading around under their very noses! And your cover is flawless." Bunny gets the distinct impression that Raffles is amused. He scowls at him. "Don't make that face," Raffles admonishes. "It rather spoils the look of the thing."

"Oh, I'll give myself away somehow! I know it!" As if to illustrate his point, Bunny's hat slips down his face, and he stops to adjust it in a nearby mirror. Raffles is right behind him, looking at Bunny's reflection with a slight grin on his lips.

"You won't give yourself away. Look in the mirror, Bunny," Raffles says, wryly. "Why, I don't think I've ever been seen in public with a prettier girl than you."

Bunny briefly considers saying something unladylike, but thinks better of it. And anyway, he hasn't got the breath for it in this blasted whalebone corset.

* * *

Though he has been preparing for this moment -- imagining a thousand things he might say, and a thousand things Raffles might say in reply to each -- still, when it finally comes, Bunny is struck speechless. He lowers the revolver, his fingers trembling on the handle, and the all the well-prepared words stick in his throat.

There's a girl with him -- a pretty girl, with wide, fearless eyes and dark hair who clings to Raffles' side, quite accustomed to the place. Bunny feels the old surge of an emotion something like jealousy flaring in him again. The last time he saw Raffles, there had been a girl on his arm then too...Bunny wonders if he is playing the same game now, and what crime he might be covering with it.

It is Raffles who finally breaks the silence. "Bunny," he says, betraying only a modicum of surprise. "It's been a long time."

"Five years," Bunny says, in a voice barely over a whisper. "Five years..."

He looks somewhat ashamed -- or perhaps Bunny is merely wishing that Raffles feels remorse, reading emotion where there is none. "I've been dead, Bunny. You simply can't imagine how that changes a fellow's life."

The girl leans up to whisper in Raffles' ear, and Raffles replies in low tones; Bunny cannot make out the words, but he recognizes that they are speaking in Italian. He looks away until the girl turns and addresses him in heavily accented English, "I understand. Your friend has told me much about you."

Bunny barely registers the girl's words; at this moment there is no room in his addled thoughts for more than Raffles. "The papers said you were dead, when I got out. But I...I didn't believe it. You couldn't be dead. Not as suddenly, as vainly as that. Not you, Raffles. And now...now I've found..."

"...that you were right," Raffles says, finishing Bunny's thoughts as though they had never been apart, and Raffles gives a grin that is something like the one Bunny remembers so clearly. "Of course, you know better than the papers. Bunny," he continues, turning to the girl, "this is Faustina." She nods, her expression warm. Bunny does not look at her.

"Did you come here only to look for him?" Faustina asks. She sounds impressed -- admiring, even, of a friend's devotion. Bunny wonders how much she knows -- after being assured of Bunny's identity, he notices, she hasn't seemed the least bit bothered by the revolver still clutched in his hand.

"I came..." Bunny begins, and looks at Raffles. He is smiling slightly, and nods at him. "To find Raffles," Bunny continues, willing his voice to stop trembling, "and to run away."

"Running away, my rabbit? Whatever from?" The old endearment cuts Bunny like a hot knife, straight to the bone.

"From...Raffles, I robbed a bank!" he bursts out, a year's worth of desperation pouring out in a single confession. The revolver slips from his trembling fingers and he buries his face in his hands. "And more than that! After I was evicted I didn't see any choice but to...but to -- go back to the way it was before." Bunny looks up and smiles ruefully. "I never had the knack for it like you did. They saw my face, and now I'm wanted all over England. So I came here...I thought, perhaps, we might..."

"...be burglars again together," Raffles breathes, then smiles -- as kindly a smile as Bunny can ever remember him giving. "I haven't stolen a red cent since I washed up here, Bunny."

At this, there is nothing Bunny can do but laugh -- bitterly, and without a trace of humor.

* * *

Bunny knows exactly how it happened. Raffles has a way about him -- a method of making himself irresistible. He knows how his fiance's meeting with Raffles must have gone...he smiles as though he knows everything you've ever wanted, and he looks at you as if to say he could get it for you. And you can't help but believe him; his eyes are piercing, and you feel he can read everything written in your thoughts. He could make anyone forget they ever had scruples. Bunny had fancied that maybe she was made of sterner stuff than he was, but only a will of iron could have stood up to Raffles at his most persuasive. He had charmed her thoroughly with the promise of secrets, dazzled her with the illicit thrill of simply taking whatever she wished -- and she had fallen, just as surely as Bunny had.

They were to be married, but that plan had changed. It wouldn't do to have their names set down in more official registers than was absolutely necessary. Now she and Bunny have a strange half-betrothal, an 'understanding' that will never be more than that. The great reason, Bunny supposes, is that they cannot be joined to each other because they are first and foremost joined to Raffles, orbiting him like satellites around some blinding star.

As usual, Raffles was right. Things are much easier with three -- they were never without a lookout when some task required more than one pair of hands, and Raffles' schemes only grew more elaborate with the addition of a third accomplice. She is smaller and lighter than either of them; once she discarded her corsets and petticoats in favor of an urchin's trousers and slouch cap, she could squirm her way between bars and into spaces that neither Bunny or Raffles could reach. And there really is no better distraction than a comely young lady, batting her eyelashes at a policeman or fainting dead away from the heat, bringing everyone in the room to her immediate aid. They are better off for her assistance, without a doubt.

Bunny lays awake some nights, imagining their life if everything had gone according to their own plans. Perhaps they would have a house together, or at least a flat in the city; perhaps he would have found success at last, and they would be happy...but there would still be secrets. There would be the fear of being found out, and that one side of Bunny's life that, even if he gave it up entirely, he would never be able to show her. Now, there were no secrets between them. They were both damned equally, sharing in the same crimes. Bunny still feared discovery -- he supposed he would never conquer that fear -- but not by her.

He wonders, perhaps, if Raffles had somehow been right about that too.


End file.
